Around the globe and across a wide variety of religious traditions, heritage has become central to our understanding of landscape, space and time. Heritage sites attract hundreds of millions of visitors each year, often as a form of pilgrimage to sacred destinations. Their popularity has provoked a burgeoning interest in both ‘sacred’ and ‘secular pilgrimage’ as a legitimate focus of academic inquiry. Scholars are invited to present related research at a conference on “Heritage Religion & Travel: Empirical and Theoretical Journeys,” to be held May 27-28, 2016 in Mersin, Turkey. Abstracts may be submitted either via this website or via e-mail to chemin@cag.edu.tr by 15th December 2015.
This conference seeks to build on four decades of research on the relationship between Heritage, Religion and Travel and to advance new theoretical and empirical perspectives concerning this relationship. It also offers an interdisciplinary space for debate. Hence, and not coincidentally, the conference will be hosted in the ancient city of Tarsus in Turkey, a country that could be defined as at the crossroads of history, i.e. between east and west. It is a land deeply influenced by religious traditions of extraordinary variety and richness. It also has been the setting for the rise and fall of many cultures and entire civilizations. Drawing on the work of leading academics, the organizers hope to evoke the depth and breadth of the importance of heritage and its connection to religion and new and old forms of travel and tourism.
The focus of the conference will be on re-assessing old and building new theoretical frameworks for the study of heritage, religion and travel, with particular emphasis on the study of pilgrimage and religious tourism.Please see the website for more details.